[CPWG] Today's call and the ccTLD/gTLD trends/Following ccTLDs on DNS Abuse

Thu Apr 28 00:56:08 UTC 2022

Thanks John

AS I said in the chat, this raises  important issues.

The standout for me is clearly that  ccTLD  registrations are not covered by RAA/RA agreements with their safeguards.  Think of the work CPWG has done on the EPDP on data protection - and whether/to what extent/ decisions will bind ccTLD operators.  Or think the transfer policy and the discussions on the safeguards that we are supporting.

Maybe we need a discussion on the consumer protections CPWG has been working on - and the extent to which they will be in place globally.

Holly

> On Apr 28, 2022, at 2:34 AM, John McCormac via CPWG <cpwg at icann.org> wrote:
> 
> There has been an ongoing new registrations trend with more new ccTLD registrations than gTLD registrations in many countries. It started back around 2005 but it has been accelerating for the last few years.
> 
> In some countries, the number of new ccTLD registrations each month is often double that of the gTLDs. The non-core gTLDs (i.e not .COM and to a lesser extent .NET and .ORG) still have their historical shares of country level markets but there is a very obvious shift. There is also a related trend where people register their domain name in the ccTLD and do not bother registering it in .COM or any gTLD. The increasing "uniqueness" of ccTLD registrations is also obvious with some ccTLDs.
> 
> There are phases for a country's domain name market development. The early phase involves early adopters setting up websites to sell outside the country. Traditionally, the local Internet and hosting infrastructure was not well developed so most sites were hosted outside the country and there are few if any gTLD registrars in the country. The ccTLD, in this phase, often finds it difficult to complete with gTLDs in terms of both registration fee and ease of registration.
> 
> As the country's market develops, along with the Intenet and hosting infrastructure, companies begin to host locally and local gTLD registrars appear along with more local ccTLD registrars. (The model may shift from a registry as registar one to a more typical registry-registrar one.)
> 
> With a mature market, the ccTLD dominates the market with there being more ccTLD registrars than local gTLD registrars and new ccTLD registrations overtake new gTLDs registrations each month. Rather than becoming an ICANN accredited registrar, resellers/hosters will decide to become a ccTLD accredited registrar and outsource gTLD registrations to a registrations as a service provider like some of the large gTLD registrars. A lot of the countries with strong ccTLDs are in this phase of development.
> 
> ICANN's registry-registrar model was great for the 1990s but is out of place in current the global domain name market. This will have a major impact on any geo-gTLD applications in the next round of new gTLDs. If the registrar infrastructure to sell locally is not there, then these new geo-gTLDs will find it very difficult to gain market share. Perhaps an even more worrying possibility for the next round is that the market for some prospective gTLDs does not exist or is much smaller than these applicants expect.
> 
> Even with .COM, the market is still dominanted by the early markets and countries with large hosting operations. These are the countries with most .COM websites by country resolved IP address. They are also skewed by large DDoS prevention operators like Cloudflare using US IPs.
> 
> 
> | United States       | 99763877 |
> | Germany             |  7663915 |
> | Canada              |  3873167 |
> | Seychelles          |  3765103 |
> | China               |  2757786 |
> | France              |  2487080 |
> | Japan               |  2028834 |
> | United Kingdom      |  1786066 |
> | Netherlands         |  1707633 |
> | Virgin Islands (UK) |  1330498 |
> 
> The Seychelles are largely Chinese/Hong Kong sites on Seychelles IP addesses that have been acquired by Chinese operators. The Virgin Islands sites are typically PPC parking and sales.
> 
> The distribution of .AFRICA sites is interesting in that South Africa leads with the marjority of sites.
> 
> | South Africa   | 10673 |
> | United States  |  7936 |
> | France         |  1943 |
> | Germany        |  1572 |
> | Canada         |   864 |
> | United Kingdom |   741 |
> | Switzerland    |   232 |
> | Netherlands    |   192 |
> | Morocco        |   124 |
> | Poland         |    90 |
> 
> The .BERLIN gTLD is one of the better performers of the 2012 round and is closer to being a ccTLD in terms of distribution (as is .AFRICA).
> 
> | Germany        | 37381 |
> | France         |  3852 |
> | United States  |  2699 |
> | Denmark        |   429 |
> | Switzerland    |   225 |
> | Austria        |   215 |
> | United Kingdom |   189 |
> | Canada         |   162 |
> | Poland         |   159 |
> | Hold/Expired   |   104 |
> 
> ALAC may not need to comment on the above but it needs to be aware that the market for domain names and websites is continually changing and is much more complex than the ICANN registry transactions reports suggest.
> 
> 
> Another interesting point was made by Michael Palage about following ccTLD registries on best practice on DNS Abuse, registrant verification and data quality. This is a very good idea and will save ICANN/GNSO/ALAC from wasting time trying to reinvent the wheel.
> 
> The important thing to remember is that ccTLDs are very different markets to gTLDs and the ccTLD registries are often well ahead of ICANN on some of these issues (Know Your Customer is a big topic at the moment). We should steer well clear of basing any recommendations on that EU DNS report as it is flawed in conflating ccTLD DNS Abuse with gTLD DNS Abuse.
> 
> Regards...jmcc
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